Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia has been selected as the recipient of a gift-in-kind by Antiques Weeks Media, the parent company of the travel website PhiladelphiaAntiquesWeek.com. Philadelphia Antiques Week runs from April 27 – May 1.

Woodmere Art Museum is housed in an historic Victorian mansion in the Chestnut Hill area of Philadelphia. it was originally endowed by Charles Knox Smith (1845-1916) whose intention it was “to awaken the spirit of, the appreciation of, and the knowledge of art… in the City of Philadelphia and surrounding territory.” Today, the Permanent Collection consists of more than 3,000 works of art, celebrating the art and artists of Philadelphia. And the museum school is still training artists. It’s perfect harmony between traditional and contemporary art.

Eric Miller, co-founder, along with Regina Kolbe, of Antiques Weeks Media, explained “the spirit in which Woodmere was founded align closely with the objectives of Antiques Weeks Media, whose goal it is to enrich the lives of people new to antiques and the appreciation of them. We do this by providing independent, inclusionary websites that define all aspects of specialty weeks like Philadelphia Antiques Week.”

Woodmere Art Museum will receive a year-long banner on the home page of PhiladelphiaAntiquesWeek.com, content, calendar listings and publicity on the PhiladelphaAntiquesWeek.com mobile app. Additionally, Woodmere will receive recognition in all PhiladelphiaAntiquesWeeks.com publicity.

Woodmere Art Museum’s core collection includes important paintings by such well known artists as as Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber, Walter E. Schofield, Benjamin West, Frederic Edwin Church, Violet Oakley, Arthur B. Carles, and others whose works are integral to an understanding of the times in which they were created. Additionally, Woodmere provides art training for children and adults.

Miller elaborated on the gift-in-kind to Woodmere Art Museum, saying that visitors to Philadelphia Antiques Week, which is anchored by the Philadelphia Antiques Show and the 23rd Street Armory Show, will discover Woodmere a refreshing counterpart to the shopping experience. Here, they will have an opportunity to see similar items in situ.

It is the policy of Antiques Weeks Media, whose family of travel websites includes AmericanaWeek.com, AsiaWeekGuide.com, NashvilleAntiquesWeek.com, and the newly launched ModernVintageTimes.com, to support with publicity local art institutions whose collections embody the theme of each site. For instance, in its launch year, Antiques Weeks Media has provided in-kind support for the American Folk Art Museum’s Pass the Hat campaign, whose collection is representative of AmericanWeek.com and The New York Chinese Scholars Garden at Snug Harbor in Staten Island, which blends with AsiaWeekGuide.com

“We feel,” Miller concluded, “that new collectors will find the appeal of historic items more compelling when they experience the social side of history, such as those provided by family-oriented outings to attractions such as Woodmere.”

PhiladelphiaAntiquesWeek.com carries the complete line up of shows, lectures and loan exhibits – such as “Bucket Brigades,” an exhibit of historic fire fighting equipment at the 23rd Street Armory Show.

The site also offers an interactive map of local galleries, the Shows, museums and other Philadelphia attractions that make the four day event, from April 27 – May 1 – an experience for collectors at all stages.

I am happy to announce that we have launched AsiaWeekNYC.com, the third destination website from Antiques Weeks Media, LLC. AsiaWeekNYC.com will have special appeal for Chinese buyers and cultural travelers in New York, March 16 – 24, for the Asia Week auctions and exhibitions.

Billed as the “Gateway to New York’s Asia Week,” the website provided details on the

Asia Week was branded in the 1990’s by the large international auction houses as a means of attracting a universe of buyers to its Asian art auctions. Primarily known for its commercial aspects, Asia Week also has a strong educational component. Cultural societies, including Asia Society, Japan Society and Tibet House, to name a few, as well as museums as focused as the Museum of Chinese in America and as well known at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, open their spring exhibits in time for the Asia Week travelers.

Additionally, a slate of lectures and seminars conducted by authorities on many aspects of Asian art is directed at collectors and museum curators. All are open to the public. The dates and times are posted on AsiaWeekNYC.com, along with contact information for tickets.

AsiaWeekNYC.com also introduces art lovers with a passing interest in Chinese antiques and Asian works of art to regional resources. For instance, the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City is represented, as is the Walters Collection in Atlanta, GA. Short postings of content further this introduction.

From a purely practical point of view, AsiaWeekNYC.com makes it easy for travelers to get access to the auction schedules and find the more than ninety galleries opening their doors during Asia Week. It also provides information on Asian-themed attractions in a fast, one-stop format.

As is the policy of Antiques Weeks Media, LLC when launching new sites, a donation in kind has been given to a worthy organization. The recipient of the AsiaWeekNYC.com donation is the New York Scholar’s Garden at the Staten Island Botanical Garden.

I had an opportunity to spend an hour and a half last night with Robert Wong, of Google’s Creative Lab. Google Creative Lab is responsible for marketing everything from Android and Chrome to Google Docs and the Nexus One.

This emissary from the Temple of the Future expressed the Google brand in one sentence: The best searches turn up, not on the web, but in life.

Notably, a young woman stood up and thanked Google search for leading to her birth mother, in Paraguay. A series of Google search ads – then stressed the empathetic thrust of Google’s ad campaigns. You’ve seen them on TV. A father begins writing emails to an unborn daughter and the video follows the thread through age five. At the end, the final email says, “I hope to be able to share these (emails and videos) with you someday.

Life as it is. Ad design takes the remoteness out of the message and lays it in your hands.

Similarly, the Google doodles – dare anyone other than the big G. tweak its logo? – are among the most notable things about the search site. The Les Paul doodle, for instance, on You Tube has generated gazillions of views.

Who thinks of these things? The design team does. It makes you think the Google design team exists in a world of unfettered creativity. Yes, they are the best, the most creative. But the designs are there as solutions to marketing challenges and marketing goals.

When you take these standards and apply them to the arts and antiques trade, they don’t fade into a haze of non-relevance. They become more relevant because they demonstrate the empathy that goes into creating a need.

How often do I see ads for vintage designs and antiques that are simply unstoried photos of beautiful items. These images sit like on a page, uninviting of human contact.

The point is that to create the tipping point you need to regain a position of leadership in design – and that is what, ultimately, we are selling, whether it’s a small Tiffany dialing implement for a rotary phone or a chest of drawers – to create that position, your ads need to show empathy for people’s needs and lifestyles.

Editor’s Note: The Wong talk was part of a series called Bill’s Design Talks, moderated by the Cooper-Hewitt’s Director, Bill Moggridge.

It has been a while since I checked into this blog, although I’ve been posting regularly on AmericanaWeek.com … NashvilleAntiquesWeek.com and AsiaWeekNYC.com – our new destination websites.

Antiques Weeks Media, LLC, is the steward of destination websites for the named antiques week. The sites are gateways the myriad shows, auctions, events that revolved around themed weeks.

Happy to report that AmericanaWeek.com was a huge success, given its launch was only three months prior to Americana Week. We had good traffic, and gates at shows were up. Notably, the Shows that advertised on the destination site reported increases.

NashvilleAntiquesWeek.com, which reflected a smaller venue, held strong in its traffic too. Our co-founder was able to make the trip to Nashville and brought back some super info. The shows in Nashville feature more rustic American items. If you’d like an update, check out NashvilleAntiquesWeek.com

Now, we are populating the AsiaWeekNYC.com site. This is an International week, with a huge affluent audience. The acutions are competitive and scheduled to keep bidders hopping into cabs and chasing across town in time to watch their items of interest go off – and hopefully, into their possession.

AsiaWeekNYC.com has given a donation-in-kind to the Chinese Scholars Garden at Snug Harbor in Staten Island. This beautiful site is one of New York’s best kept secrets. It is home to an authentic classical Chinese garde, the first in the U.S. It’s situated on 80 acres of gardens, lawns and ponds.

As we grow the destination websites, I’ll be posting info here. Come back for a visit – or visit one of the sites themselves.

I’m pleased to announce that we’re partnering with Eric Miller of Urban Art & Antiques to increase audiences for named antiques week shows across the country. The initiative is based on content, distribution and gratification.

We begin with New York’s Americana Week.com, which comes up in January and kicks off a year’s worth of shows and commercial exhibitions. From Americana Week.com, we are branding the other weeks that so far have been comprised of multiple campaigns, each geared toward one established audience.

By trending towards a larger picture of the weeks and providing the first overview of them, ever, we will be serving the trade no one has attempted before.

We’ll be reaching out through informative content, much of it provided by the dealers and experts who join the campaign.

The website is destination oriented, even offering tips on places to stay.

We’ll be reaching out via social media, with targeted messages.

And, come Americana Week itself, a mobile app will let people on the go know where to go.

I just filed a cover story for Antiques and the Arts Weeklyon Beatrice Wood, the studio potter – the Mama of Dada – whose career spanned the better part of the 20th Century. The show, entitled “Beatrice Wood: Career Woman” opens at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on September 10 and runs through March. It is part of a 60 museum coalition surveying the influential post war art movements in and around Los Angeles that lasted until about 1980.

PST offers a new generation an opportunity to understand how the rush of European refugees to the land of the laid back drove changes in architecture, abstraction, film, performance art and more.

It makes me remember Johnny Carson’s late night lament that there was no culture in L.A. Clearly, there was a roiling pot of creativity that simply did not get the press that the East Coast artists got.

The Getty is to be commended, as are the participating museums. At last, the West Coast’s contribution to art is being recognized as a whole.

Beatrice Wood in her Studio

As for Beatrice Wood– how you not be smitten by her unrelenting drive to create? She came to art through hubris – that old I can do it myself push – and soon discovered that she was not a born crafts person. There followed more classes in ceramics, more courses in how to fix a glaze, more trial and error at the kiln. She invented…throwing moth balls and mustard into the kiln// and she was rewarded with unpredictable results.

And do you know what she said of greeting the unexpected every time she opened a kiln?

Beatrice Wood said opening the door of the kiln was the most exciting part of the process.

Copper Luster Teapot

In a way, the Getty is allowing the museums to open the door to a kiln of another sort. By surveying the post war movements in Southern California, it is encouraging unexpected results from the many visitors influenced by what they see and learn. Kudos all around.

I read in the NY Times that $1 stores are the new haunt of the middle class. It’s instant gratification 2011 style. But that’s not good news for antique dealers and auctioneers who want to encourage shoppers to spend. There is a way out though.

It is called “aspirational marketing.”

You see it all the time on HGTV, where realtors and decorators have created formats that make people want to buy a home, and redecorate the one they have.

You see on American Pickers, where Mike Wolfe makes junk look good. And if you think he’s not following up those marginal picks with merch – check out his website’s line of accessories. The guy is making people aspire to be him!

And later this week, the Keno brothers will launch Buried Treasure and people will get turned on to their brand of knowledge.

What these shows have in common is that they educate consumers.

They also have a distribution format – national TV – that gets the word out to millions.

And what happens then? The educated in the distribution pipeline are not content with what they learn – they want to own something that reflects their new-found knowledge.

As the rush to Facebook becomes more defined, the ways to use it are becoming more refined. That is, the metrics have been long enough to provide answers about how to best use Facebook, when to post and what your “likes” expect from your page. (I’ll address expectations in the next blog post.)

Here are the new ground rules for making the most of Facebook.

The best day to publish is not a weekday. It’s the weekend. Good information that is published on Saturday and Sunday pulls in the widest audience.

The best time to post is 8:00 a.m. Like you, people are more receptive to information before they get caught up in the day’s activities.

The content that gets the most traffic is related to sex. Since you’re selling antiques, the best content is positivity. Coming in at third place is learning. And coming in at last place, work.

The most sharable word is Facebook. Since you’re probably not going on and on about FB, other words with a high share rate are: why, most and world. Video, health, how, big, bills, says all rank about the same in shareability.

The least shared words are vs, apple and review. Down, poll, Twitter, game and york are next in line for least shared.

And, here’s a clincher, the best frequency of posts is every other day. (Whew! That gives us all more time to get some real work done.)

Since it’s Friday , I’m going to hold my next post until Saturday morning at 8:00 and then I’ll share some positive information you can learn from on Facebook. And you can be sure to find out why, most things that happen in the world of antiques are big news.

What do you want from your public relations platform? Most of my clients start out saying they have everything in place except for the buzz. And with today’s touch-and-go economy, most new clients want to know about the process of creating publicity.

Whether you’re going to use PR To the Trade or use your own time and talents to make an impact, here’s what you should strive for.

First, unify your Brand.

Unify your brand.

You may not have considered this, but everyone in your company needs to know exactly what your brand stands for.

If you’re an auction house, ask yourself: what sets us apart? If you’re a dealer, what makes your inventory different? If you’re an appraiser, what is the one quality you’d like most people to remember after they meet you? Everyone in the company, from the President to the associates, needs to know the 10 words that define your company.

Next, simplify your message.

Simplify

This can get tricky, especially if you’re hyped up over the coming auction of 300 lots or you have just unpacked a container. No matter how stoked you are, you must simplify. This often means using a different approach to the message. Instead of listing all the inventory you want, talk about the overriding flavor of the offerings.

Third, amplify your message.

Amplify Your Message

Know where you’re going to place your press releases. Do you have a list of journalists eager to hear from you because every press release you have ever sent them has been meaty? If not, this is the time to check your list and ask what the journalist or blogger is writing about next.

Now I won’t give you all our trade secrets, but there are platforms that give you access to tons of journalists and alert you to their most recent and coming projects.

Don’t forget the power of the Internet. Your message may not be timely for some, but it will always find audiences on the Internet, provided you have an enticing headline, a unified voice and a simplified message.

More trade secrets ebb out. Be sure to monitor the traction you’re getting on the Internet. Know how many impressions you are getting, how many full reads and where they’re coming from. And, definitely, make sure you know who is picking up your message.

Ultimately, the three most important words in your PR campaign are: unify, simplify, amplify.

So, in a spirit of humanism, Asian Arts Week is collaborating with Arts of Pacific Asia producers, Elizabeth Lees and Bill Caskey, to turn the opening night preview into a benefit fundraiser. Both exhibitors and guests are being asked to donate a suggested amount of $50 to the relief efforts.

Turning a Preview into a Benefit

With access to the quake and tsunami zones still limited, Doctors Without Borders has dispatched two teams of three already.

At this time, relief organizations are saying funds cannot be earmarked for Japan specifically. But it is our belief that Doctors Without Borders, which appears on the CNN list, historically performs well. Donations made through the Arts of Pacific Asia initiative will fund their work.

I join Liz Caskey in saying that it is most appropriate for lovers of Japanese art and culture and the galleries that have benefited from the work to be among the leaders of givers in art and antiques world.

Contributions may be made by check or cash. Any organization participating in the week’s events but not coming to the Preview but desiring to donate can get more information by sending an email to asianartsweek@gmail.com.

As for myself, I will be contributing my time to get the word out and making a financial contribution as well. (Any PR people who would like to donate time to help spread the word can contact me at prtothetrade@gmail.com.)

For the past several years, Arts of Pacific Asia, unlike most high level antique/art shows, has not had a benefit opening. It is most fitting that this year, exhibitors and guests rally around our friends to the East.

Arts of Pacific Asia preview party is Wednesday, March 23 at 7W. (That’s 7 West 34th Street.) NYC, of course.